People v. Thomas

93 A.D.3d 1019, 941 N.Y.S.2d 722
Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York·Decided March 22, 2012·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

Spain, J.P.

Appeal from a judgment of the County Court of Rensselaer County (Ceresia, J.), rendered November 12, 2009, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crime of murder in the second degree.

On Sunday, September 21, 2008, defendant’s wife, Wilhemina Hicks, woke around 9:00 a.m. in their two-bedroom apartment in the City of Troy, Rensselaer County to find that their four-month-old son Matthew was unresponsive and not breathing regularly; she awoke defendant, 911 was called and emergency personnel responded. Upon arrival at a local hospital with Hicks, Matthew was in critical condition, in severe respiratory distress, unconscious and nonresponsive, and placed on a ventilator and antibiotics; blood tests later showed that he had streptococcal pneumonia, a bacterial infection. The infant was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit of Albany Medical Center Hospital (hereinafter AMCH), where he arrived unresponsive, with very little brain activity or neurological functions, and was not adequately breathing on his own. A CAT scan disclosed what treating physicians determined to be subdural hematomas on both sides of his brain consistent with severe head trauma resulting from rapid acceleration and then sudden deceleration of the head, causing the brain to move back and forth inside the skull. Matthew also exhibited signs of sepsis, an overwhelming systemic infection. Shortly after his arrival at AMCH, despite extensive medical intervention, it was determined that Matthew was brain dead; two days later he was removed from life support and died.

Defendant remained at the apartment with the couple’s six other children, all under nine years old, including Matthew’s twin brother. That evening City of Troy police detectives accompanied Rensselaer County Child Frotective Services (hereinafter CFS) caseworkers to the apartment where they briefly questioned defendant and CFS removed the children, leaving defendant alone. Interviewed by detectives hours later and again the next evening at length, defendant ultimately confessed that he had thrown Matthew onto a mattress and box spring located — without a bedframe — directly on the floor in defendant’s bedroom, three times in the four days preceding the 911 call. Defendant also admitted that he had unintentionally hit the infant’s head against the side of his crib several times, including after the 911 call. The police interviews were recorded on DVDs, which captured defendant, self-described at 500 pounds, demonstrating how he had forcefully thrown the infant to the mat[1021]*1021tress. Defendant signed two statements that reflected essential parts of his admissions during each interview. It was also established that Matthew, who weighed just 15 pounds and had been born two months premature, had been ill and experiencing fevers, diarrhea and vomiting in the days preceding his death.

Defendant was indicted on one count of depraved indifference murder and, at trial, Hicks testified, denying harming Matthew. A plethora of highly credentialed medical subspecialists were called by both sides, offering two sharply conflicting opinions regarding the primary cause of death. The People’s experts, including the pediatric critical care supervisor and pediatric neurosurgeon who treated Matthew at AMCH and the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, all testified that the cause of death was the subdural hematomas or brain swelling and bleeding caused by severe blunt force head trauma, and that sepsis and pneumonia were secondary contributing factors, but not the sole cause. Defendant’s experts, by contrast, concluded that sepsis leading to meningitis and septic shock and not head trauma was the cause of death. Whereas the pediatric critical care physician who treated Matthew opined that defendant’s admitted actions in throwing a four month old with considerable force onto a mattress and box spring — the surface of which was located 17 inches above the floor — several times in four days is the type of rapid acceleration-deceleration that could cause the severe head trauma and subdural hematomas found in Matthew, the neuropathologist who testified on behalf of the defense opined that such an injury would “probably not” result from such actions. Defendant, in his trial testimony, disavowed his confession as coerced and false, and denied throwing Matthew or hitting his head against the crib.

After a jury trial, at which the jury viewed a redacted video version of most of defendant’s interviews with police, defendant was convicted of depraved indifference murder and sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. Defendant now appeals.

Initially, defendant argues that his oral and written statements to police should have been suppressed on the grounds that they were involuntarily obtained and the product of coercive custodial interrogation methods, which included false promises, misrepresentations and threats. After a hearing, County Court denied defendant’s suppression motion finding that the statements had been voluntarily made in a noncustodial setting in which police did not employ impermissible coercive tactics.

The voluntariness of defendant’s statements is evaluated by looking at the totality of the circumstances in which they were [1022]*1022obtained (see People v Anderson, 42 NY2d 35, 38 [1977]; see also People v Mateo, 2 NY3d 383, 413-414 [2004], cert denied 542 US 946 [2004]; People v Pouliot, 64 AD3d 1043, 1044 [2009], lv denied 13 NY3d 838 [2009]), guided by the axiom that deceptive police strategies in securing a confession “need not result in [a finding of] involuntariness without some showing that the deception was so fundamentally unfair as to deny due process or that a promise or threat was made that could induce a false confession” (People v Tarsia, 50 NY2d 1, 11 [1980] [emphasis added; citations omitted]; see People v Mateo, 2 NY2d at 413; People v Tankleff, 84 NY2d 992, 994 [1994]; People v Munck, 92 AD3d 63, 68 [2011]; People v Dishaw, 30 AD3d 689, 690 [2006], lv denied 7 NY3d 787 [2006]; see also CPL 60.45 [2] [b] [i]). Upon our review of the unredacted recorded interviews and the Huntley testimony, we find that defendant — who did not testify at the hearing — voluntarily confessed during noncustodial interviews in which police employed permissible strategies aimed at eliciting the truth of what had occurred leading up to Matthew’s death.

According to the police officers who testified, defendant was interviewed by police on two separate occasions: for about two hours beginning around midnight on Sunday, September 21, 2008, and the next day, Monday, for approximately seven hours — from around 6:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m. on Tuesday, when he was arrested. On Sunday, after the other children were removed by CPS, the officers told defendant that they would be in touch and left him alone. Hours later, around midnight, Detectives Adam Mason and Ronald Fountain, who had been to AMCH, returned to defendant’s apartment; he was awake and agreed to accompany them to the police station to discuss the incident. At the outset of the first interview, Mason read defendant each individual Miranda warning, some of which he explained at defendant’s request, and he was advised that he was not under arrest and could stop questioning at any time; defendant indicated that he understood, signing a waiver after they had him read the document aloud to ascertain his reading ability.

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People v. Thomas, 93 A.D.3d 1019, 941 N.Y.S.2d 722 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2012).

93 A.D.3d 1019 (People v. Thomas) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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